Best apps for holiday shopping

With stores like Target and Best Buy willing to discount further if you find lower prices elsewhere on your smartphone this holiday, it pays to use your phone.

As e-tailers duke it out with traditional stores, consumers stand to benefit as both sides improve the smartphone and in-store shopping experience.

But which apps should you download before heading out? Here is our list of the shopping apps to keep loaded on your phone, especially if you’re braving the Black Friday crowds.

If you are headed to a
Westfield mall
(that’s Horton Plaza, Mission Valley, North County, Parkway, Plaza Bonita, Plaza Camino Real and UTC), the Westfield 2.0 app offers local movie times, restaurant reservations and turn-by-turn walking directions to any store in each mall. The latest update adds a nifty perk: Concierge, a voice-command feature enabling shoppers to ask “What’s on sale at Horton Plaza?” (Free, for Android and iPhone users.)

For other malls, download
FastMall
, the ultimate mall map app that doesn’t require Wi-Fi or GPS to function. It too offers turn-by-turn walking directions inside major malls, as well as filters to quickly find the nearest elevator, bathroom (just shake the phone) and food court. Smart features include walking directions using elevators and in-store deals redeemed by showing your smartphone screen. One note: The iPhone version offers more features than others. (Free, iOS, Android, Windows and Nokia.)

While preparation certainly helps, there’s no need to scour Black Friday ads before going shopping. Thanks to numerous Black Friday apps, you can scout the ads while shopping — or while waiting in long checkout lines. The good ones, at minimum, offer images of the actual “leaked” newspaper ad, ability to save items to a shopping list and a notification when a new ad is posted. Others with notable features:

BFAds Black Friday
: Works without a data connection. Also notifies you when a holiday sale goes live. (Free, for iPhone and Android users.)

More so than any year before, check for lower prices elsewhere on your phone while shopping. If you can prove it, you’ll likely get a better deal. For a limited time, Target and Best Buy promise to match prices of Amazon and certain other online retailers if you pull up a lower price on your smartphone. Staples offers price matching for other brick-and-mortar competitors (show them the newspaper ad) and its own website.

There may be caveats (no price matching during Black Friday weekend) but if you find a price lower elsewhere, ask if the store will match the price. To do that, make sure you’ve got one of these comparison shopping apps:

ShopSavvy
is a go-to app for many because it was also the first bar code scanning app for Android. It remains a top app because it is incredibly fast at scanning bar codes and showing competitive pricing for local and online retailers. You can also buy items on the phone using its ShopSavvy Wallet. (Free, Android, iOS and Windows)